Careme (TV Program)

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    ‘Câreme’ Serves Up Satisfaction in the Kitchen and the Bedroom

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    “Carême,” a new Apple TV+ series, is based on the life of a 19th-century society chef who delighted diners and lovers. It’s very French.In recent years, you may have followed a hunky onscreen chef, battling chaos to create outstanding food on FX’s “The Bear.” Maybe you also fell for “Bridgerton,” Netflix’s lavish, anachronistic romp through the 19th-century upper classes.Now “Carême,” a new Apple TV+ show arriving Wednesday, combines the pleasures of both those shows to tell the story of Marie-Antoine Carême, who was perhaps the world’s first celebrity chef. Born into poverty in late-18th century Paris, Carême rose to cook for Napoleon Bonaparte, a Russian czar and a member of the Rothschild banking family, delighting European high society with his intricate, architectural dishes. He is often credited as the founder of French gastronomy — and with popularizing the tall chef hat.To convey how innovative Carême was, “our vision was to avoid a usual period drama style,” said Martin Bourboulon, who directed the show’s first three episodes. Although “Carême” is based on a book by Ian Kelly, Bourboulon said he and his colleagues approached the period elements with a “side step,” and added some modern twists to the historical fact.Lyna Khoudri, left, and Voisin in “Carême.”Apple TV+The costumes, for instance, nod to 20th-century and contemporary fashions, and so they had to be made from scratch rather than rented, as is typical on a production of this scale. The characters speak modern French, and Benjamin Voisin plays Carême as a tousle-headed, opium-taking charmer, with the rebellious attitude of Mick Jagger and Lenny Kravitz.It’s unsurprising, therefore, that it can seem as if almost as many of Carême’s scenes are set in the bedroom as in the kitchen — and some of those kitchen scenes are still quite sexy. “I found similarities between the sex scenes and the food scenes,” Bourboulon said, especially when it came to the care Carême takes giving pleasure in both contexts.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      ‘Carême’ Is a Sexy Historical Kitchen Drama

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      The series, about a celebrity chef in Napoleonic France, has a loose relationship to historical facts. But that frees it to be spry and fun.The French drama “Carême,” beginning Wednesday, on Apple TV+ (in French, with subtitles, or dubbed), is the story of the chef Antonin Carême, who rose to prominence during the reign of Napoleon and whose ideas still shape the modern food world. Can he save France through the sheer thinness of his pastry layers … and also through his blazing horniness and sexual charisma? Oui! Sorry — oui, chef! (According to the show, he’s the guy who invented saying that.)Benjamin Voisin stars as Carême: pouty, endlessly flirtatious, exacting, gifted. Were motorcycles a thing in 1803, he would have a motorcycle. His ambition — and his medical knowledge of herbs and elixirs — catches the eye of the powerful politician Charles Maurice de Talleyrand-Périgord, and although Carême initially resists, he agrees to work for Talleyrand and finds himself cooking for Napoleon’s inner circle. Bonaparte, as many of the characters call Napoleon, goes largely unseen on the show; “Carême” focuses on all the behind-the-scenes players, all the power, influence and intrigue that exist around and beyond a throne.“Cooking is very similar to seducing,” Talleyrand (Jérémie Renier) tells Carême. Yeah, dude, he knows. Everybody’s in bed with everybody here: romantically, sexually, but especially politically. When we’re not gazing in wonder at perhaps the world’s greatest array of copper pots, we’re listening in on various zigs and zags of espionage and diplomacy. Carême uses his dishes to woo foreign officials and communicate with political prisoners, to curry favor with the Pope, to coerce a king in exile.The show is based on the book “Cooking for Kings: The Life of Antonin Carême, the First Celebrity Chef,” by Ian Kelly. Like many period dramas, “Carême” has a loose relationship to historical facts, and its dialogue is decidedly modern. Freed from the shackles of accuracy, the show is instead able to indulge in being spry and fun, without the lugubriousness of bleak historical dramas or the self-seriousness of kitchen dramas. It has the fizz of “Downton Abbey,” in its pomp and in the frequency with which bad news is delivered by note.It also does often resemble “The Bear,” as Carême and Carmy both use sketching and meticulous cooking as ways to process (or not) their daddy issues. Both chefs rely on the steady genius of a Black female second-in-command, here Agatha (Alice Da Luz), a brilliant and disciplined chef and leader. The stakes on “Carême” are much higher — i.e., the genuine fate of Europe — but the show is much lighter.So light, in fact, that it often drifts into the cartoonish appeal of a musical, especially in its eyebrow-waggling, Javert-tinged villain (Micha Lescot). Carême’s grand, theatrical creations would be right at home in “Be Our Guest,” and proclamations on how one seizes power and lamentations on the sorrows of orphanhood have certainly lent themselves to song before.Two episodes of “Carême” arrive on Wednesday, and the subsequent six premiere weekly. Sadly, only one episode can be titled “A Recipe for a Disaster.” More